


Running Out of Days

by unsettled



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: 24 hour challenge, Alternate Universe - Zombies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 10:35:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1223122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsettled/pseuds/unsettled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What," Holmes snaps, "let go the fact that you somehow managed to turn most of the population into flesh eating mindless rotting <i>things</i>? No, I don't think I will!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running Out of Days

**Author's Note:**

> For kizzia's prompt of "into battle". I don't even know what happened here. I started out with a totally different idea and then anneka-neko said 'that sounds ideal for a Blackwood/Holmes zombie!AU I demand it!' And 2000 words later I’m going 'well then that happened'. Heavy on both the crack and the angst.

He hadn't meant for it to happen.

Obviously. 

The spell had been intended for far more benign purposes, by his standards. Had been a relatively tame mind control spell.

"Oh well, that's very nice, you didn't mean it to happen, yes, well. That's what happens when you mess around in the occult!" Holmes glares at him, looking decidedly roughed up as he leans against the door. 

Blackwood isn't looking much better himself, he has to admit. "I’m sorry," he grits out. "I _said_ I’m sorry a dozen times, will you ever let that go?" He runs a hand through his hair and grimaces when it catches in tacky, almost dried blood. 

"What," Holmes snaps, "let go the fact that you somehow managed to turn most of the population into flesh eating mindless rotting _things_? No, I don't think I will!" The door shudders, something scratching against the outside. "Find something to barricade this already!"

There isn't much available in the smallish suite they'd holed up in, but he manages to drag a heavy armoire over to the door. Together, they push it in front and waited with bated breath to see if it will hold. 

It does. 

Holmes breathes a short lived sigh of relief and sets his gun down beside him as he inspects his arm, which is slowly dripping blood. Blackwood grabs his arm. "Did they get you?" he asks, sharply. 

"No," Holmes says. "There was a piece of metal that I caught on when I fell." He pauses, silent for a moment. "Thank you for that, by the way."

He hadn't intended to yank Holmes up, either, or drag him behind him until they reached an alley they could defend for a short period of time. He should have left Holmes for bait. "Who do you think it is," he says, glancing towards the door. 

Holmes shrugs, his lips tight. "It could be anyone," he replies. 

"Even Watson?" and he can't quite resist the dig. 

"Yes," Holmes says, quietly. "Even him. What about your companion?" he fires back. "It could be him."

Blackwood remembers the vacant expression on Coward's face in the instant before he shot him. No, he wants to say, not him, but he doesn't know what will keep these monsters down. "Maybe," he says instead. 

They stare at the door, together, as something groans and claws at it. 

"What," Blackwood says, not taking his eyes from the door, "exactly is the plan here?" 

"Plan?" Holmes says blankly. "Run. Hide. Try not to die and be eaten by people I used to know."

Blackwood turns to Holmes and glares. "That's not a plan, Holmes, that's not even -"

"Oh well excuse me, but it's not like we can do anything!" Holmes' voice sharpens and he glares back. "We don't even know how to kill them! Where's your answer to that?"

"Aren't you supposed to be the genius?" Blackwood snaps back, his own voice rising. "Why don't you figure out how to kill them then?" 

"Yes, of course," Holmes yells at him, waving his hands about violently. "I'll just trundle down to the nearest occult library and research into – oh that's right, we're trapped in someone's rooms with no access to anything because YOU MADE ZOMBIES THAT ARE TAKING OVER THE WORLD." 

"It's not my fault the spell did that, the translation was terrible and all it was supposed to do was turn you stupid people into puppets so you'd stop fighting everything we tried to do!"

"That's so much better, really, mindless puppets, trying to take over the world – you can't even manage a decent translation or fact checking, what on earth makes you think you could ever rule with any semblance of competency..."

They're shouting at each other now, faces bare inches away, not even listening to what’s being said, wholly intent on not backing down no matter what. Holmes has just managed to hit him with one of his dramatic gestures and he grabs Holmes' bloodstained shirt, ready to shove him up against the wall, when something he's been hearing for a while now finally registers. He freezes. 

Holmes rattles on until Blackwood slaps a hand across his mouth, and even then he continues to make indignant noises against Blackwood's skin. "Hush," Blackwood hisses. "Listen to that."

There's a different sound at the door now, no scrabbling. They inch closer to it, together. Holmes presses his ear to the door. Pulls it away after a minute, with a confused look on his face. "They're … just saying 'brains' over and over again," he says, baffled. "With slightly different intonations. It's almost like a conversation." 

Blackwood stares at him. "Help me with this," he says after a moment, and starts shifting the armoire back a little bit. 

"What -" Holmes starts, indignantly, but Blackwood cuts him off. 

"We need to know what's going on out there," he says. "Just a crack, no more." 

They press together to put their eyes to the crack, and the sight that greets them is … Blackwood doesn't even have words to describe it. 

Coward and Watson stand outside the door, facing each other and making noises as they hit at the other, ineffectually. It's not really fighting, just pushing. Watson looks almost normal, aside from the gray cast to his skin and the slow, heavy way he moves, but Coward is a mess, half his face a bloody ruin where Blackwood shot him, his clothes tattered. Blackwood had seen some of the monsters falling upon each other, and he could easily enough imagine them attacking a wounded Coward. 

Behind them is a crowd of zombies, or at least as much of a crowd as could fit in the stairway, and every now and then one of them would shamble forward, only to have both Coward and Watson turn on it, hissing and attacking until it retreated back to the mass. 

"Why don't they just rush them?" Holmes whispers. "They're only two, against that many."

Blackwood is too shaken by the sight of Coward to reply. He'd hoped he'd been able to put Coward out of his misery, keep him from becoming one of these creatures. Hoped. "Coward," he whispers, and almost instantly, Coward turns, walking towards the door with heavy steps. 

Holmes makes an undignified noise much like a squeak and yanks Blackwood back, slamming shut the door just as Coward hits it. Together, they shove the armoire back in front of the door. 

They stare at each other, shaken, worried. 

*

They take stock. 

There's not much of use in the rooms they now occupy, and no good escape from them. There's a bit of food, mostly biscuits and a few other dry goods, along with a small amount of tea. The water is still running, and there's a bed and some spare clothes. 

They clean up a bit, without talking to each other, acting as though they are alone in these small rooms. Drink some cold tea, still avoiding each other, avoiding the door, avoiding the windows. Avoiding everything, really. 

"It was a spell that started this," Holmes says, finally, and Blackwood bristles. "So perhaps a spell could end it, yes?" 

Blackwood shrugs, uncomfortable. "I don't know," he admits. 'This was hardly what was supposed to happen; I have no idea if the counter might even do any good." 

"There's a counter?" Holmes asks, startled. "Why didn't you attempt it before, then? Have you really spent all this time doing nothing useful?"

"I haven't been able to complete it," Blackwood says through gritted teeth. "I’m always interrupted before I can finish it," and this time he gives Holmes a pointed look, since his last attempt had been rudely interrupted by Holmes himself. 

"Well," Holmes waves a hand at him, carelessly. "You're not about to be interrupted here. Get on with it, then."

It's not that simple, he wants to tell Holmes, but what's the point. It might work, it might not, but there's nothing to gain from waiting. And it's not like he hasn't been trying. 

He can tell it's going wrong two thirds through, Holmes watching him curiously. He struggles to hide his sudden fear from Holmes, fear at the way everything he's saying has gone slick and metallic in his mouth, the way the words seem to be saying themselves. He finishes, the sickening feeling of something decayed drowning him until it crests and rushes out of him, leaving him swaying unsteadily. 

"I-" he starts, his throat dry and raw. "I don't think it worked right," he says, nervously. 

Holmes looks at him, then goes to the window. He's silent for a long moment. "I would say not," he says finally. "Not only do the zombies appear to still be present, we're now in possession of a rather fine river of blood." His voice is heavy with sarcasm. "I believe that's _just_ what we needed, well done for solving everything." 

Blackwood slumps to the floor and groans. How did that even happen, how was it _possible_? "Maybe they'll drink that instead of trying to eat us," he says, tiredly. "It's worth a shot, isn't it? Besides, I still haven't heard a plan from you."

Holmes is staring at him like he's an idiot, like he doesn't have the time to deal with this. "That's vampires," he says, in a slow, condescending voice. "Don't you know _any_ -" he shakes his head. "Of all the millions of people I could have been spending my last few hours with and I end up with you, an occult dabbler who doesn't even know the different between zombies and vampires." 

"Demons," says Blackwood, perhaps a bit snidely, but he thinks it can be excused. His head thumps back against the wall as he sighs. 

"What?" asks Holmes. 

"Demons," Blackwood repeats. "Demons, hell, you know. Things that go together. That's what the order was about, the kind of power it was trying to summon. There was nothing about vampires or zombies or anything like that in our ritual texts. Just demons."

He's not quite prepared for Holmes to let out a snort of laughter; even Holmes seems surprised for a second, and then the laughter catches him up and he's giggling like mad, hands clapped over his mouth as he turns red. It's infectious, and a few seconds later Blackwood finds himself laughing until he can't breathe as well. There's no reason for it, but they can't stop, something setting them off again every time they begin to calm, keeping them laughing until they're gasping for breath, wiping tears from their eyes. 

They still, finally, Blackwood with his head tipped back so he can't see Holmes, so a stray glance can't set them off again. "God," Holmes says, finally, into the near silence. "We're doomed."

Privately, Blackwood agrees. "We can't just give up, though," he says, halfheartedly. 

Holmes just sighs. 

They sit, watching the last rays of daylight turn orange, red, purple through the window, till the light is almost gone. Neither of them moves to light a lamp. 

"We should sleep," Holmes says, eventually. 

"Who's taking first watch?" Blackwood asks, and Holmes snorts a small laugh at that. 

"What's the point?" he says, and then shakes his head. "I will."

*

He isn't really asleep when the shadow slips into the bedroom – he's been lying staring at the ceiling for hours, unable to stop thinking about Coward and Watson, arrayed outside their door like guard dogs; hungry, vicious ones. So he isn't really asleep when Holmes creeps up to him, but he doesn't say anything until Holmes is kneeling on the bed next to him, leaning forwards into Blackwood's space. 

"Holmes?" he says, quietly, questioningly. 

Holmes places a hand on Blackwood's chest, warm. "We're doomed," he repeats from earlier. "There's no plan, no escape. No last minute save." He shudders. "We're going to die, if not here, then soon. Going to die-" and his voice cracks slightly, "going to die at the hands of those we trusted most." 

Blackwood brings a hand up, flattens it over Holmes'. "We're not going to die," he says, struggling to believe it himself. Holmes stares blankly through him.

"I don't want to die," he whispers. 

"We're not going to die," Blackwood says again, willing himself to believe. Willing Holmes to believe. 

Holmes shifts a little closer. "Tell me again," he breathes. 

Blackwood brings his other hand up, curls it around the back of Holmes' skull and pulls him in, close, foreheads touching. "We're not going to die," he says, and this time he almost manages conviction. 

Holmes is shaking, fine tremors running through his body. "Again," he begs, hand clutching at Blackwood's chest. 

"I won't let you die at their hands," Blackwood tells him, and this he can believe, this he can say with absolute surety. Holmes takes the words from his mouth, breathes them in from a scant inch away, and presses in, closer, lips pressing against Blackwood's until he gives in, opens his mouth and kisses Holmes back. 

Holmes kisses like desperation, like everything is ending, hungry and demanding and frantic. There's a thread of something appealing in that, but it's not what he wants right now. He catches Holmes' face between his hands, stills him, twists his kisses into something slower, more measured at least, if no calmer. He tastes faintly bitter, of over steeped tea and faint wisps of smoke and blood. 

In the dark, he could almost be someone else. He could almost - 

But this shadow in his arms doesn't make the same noises, or shiver at the same touches, or smell the same, and the illusion is shattered; he turns his mind from that as best he can and sets to learning just what sounds Holmes does make, what makes him shift and press closer and beg wordlessly for more. 

He brings his hands down to rest on Holmes' hips, and Holmes's fingers claw at his shirt briefly before he shifts his weight and slides that hand down, fumbling at his own trousers. Blackwood is quick to help him, and a moment later Holmes is puling back, panting harshly as he shoves his trousers down, kicks them off the bed. He pulls Blackwood's hand to him, wraps it around his cock and Blackwood obliges him, tightening his hand around the hot, slightly damp skin while Holmes leans back into him, his breath catching, eyelashes fluttering against Blackwood's skin. Obliges him until he is rutting against Blackwood, until he's managed to unbutton his own trousers enough to shove them down just enough for his cock to slide free, brushing against Holmes. 

Then he moves, rolling until Holmes is pinned beneath him, his face buried in the sweet skin of his shoulder, teeth biting down down on the tender meeting of neck and shoulder. Holmes shudders, and whines, and opens his legs, tilts his hips up and asks with everything but words. Is eager when he sucks Blackwood's fingers into his mouth, eager when Blackwood slips those fingers into his ass, twisting them as Holmes shoves back against him. "No," he says, finally, when Blackwood goes to add another. "Just..."

Maybe Blackwood moans a little bit at that, maybe he just catches his breath and presses a deceptively light kiss to Holmes' forehead, but there's no hiding his moan as he slides into Holmes, just on the uncomfortable side of too tight, just enough to make him want more. He moves, presses in relentlessly, and Holmes squirms underneath him, making gorgeous little choked sounds, clutching at him. He rests for a moment, buried within Holmes, before pulling out halfway and slamming back in, just hard enough for Holmes to make a small surprised sound before he arches into Blackwood's thrusts. 

He slides his hand into that dark hair, nuzzles his mouth as he fucks him, and Co – Holmes, Holmes, opens to him, completely, willingly, whimpering as Blackwood takes hold of his cock again and brushes his thumb over the wetly smeared slit. " _Please_ ," Holmes moans, and Blackwood tightens his hand.

"You're not going to die," he whispers against Holmes' lips. Holmes' eye's open, startled, dark. "Say it," he hisses, and gives Holmes' cock a tight stroke just as he slides out, leaving Holmes almost empty, tightening around the head of his cock as he thrusts upward into Blackwood's hand. Holmes closes his eyes, swallows hard. 

"I-" he starts, then gasps and shakes his head. 

"Say it," Blackwood demands, sets his teeth to Holmes' bottom lip for a second. 

Holmes eyes flutter open, and in the faint light all Blackwood can really see is the wet gleam of them. "I’m not going to die," he breathes out, into a curious moment of stillness between them, and if it sounds almost a question, it's still been said. 

"You're not," Blackwood agrees, and slams back into Holmes, twisting his hand as he stokes Holmes' cock once, twice, and then Holmes is coming, shuddering and groaning as his fingers dig into Blackwood's skin, bruising hard. Blackwood fucks into him again, into the shivering, tightening sensation of Holmes coming around him, again and again until he comes as well, collapsing onto Holmes as his shaky arms refuse to hold him up another second. They lie together, panting, their skin cooling as sweat evaporates off them. 

"You're not going to die," he tells Holmes, one more time, one last time, mumbled into the skin of his neck. 

Holmes huffs out a shaky, half amused laugh. "Of course not," he agrees. "As if some flesh eating monster could go up against my intellect and win." 

Blackwood smiles, faintly, impossible for Holmes to see in the dark, knowing Holmes can tell anyway, and tucks Holmes a closer to him. 

* 

Maybe they will wake in the morning to another day of fruitless searching, say after day of failed attempts to escape, to fix things, as their supplies dwindle and the scratching grows louder and louder, as Holmes becomes skin and bones and frantic, right up until the moment the door finally shudders open and Blackwood pressed the muzzle of his gun against Holmes' skull, where he'd cupped his hand so few nights before, right up until he keeps his promise to Holmes and never lets him see how Watson leads the pack to tear them apart. 

Maybe tomorrow Holmes will connect things in that unlikely way of his and they will slide, breathless and disbelieving it could really work out, from the window, holding their breaths until they land and it's knocked out of them. Until they run, never looking back, fill their arms with useful things and find a couple of horses, unharmed by more than a few days without feed, until they leave the city behind and the dead behind and past behind and start searching for somewhere safe, somewhere they won't have to sleep with one eye open. Until they find it, and can pretend their nights aren't filled with nightmares, however slowly they fade. 

Maybe they won't wake at all.


End file.
